Tales from the Tour…Le Grand Depart Part 1

With the tour now over and the photos files there is some time to look back on the adventures that were had along the way.

The destination was Germany…Düsseldorf to be precise and it was to be a weekend of collecting countries, enough to make you look back fondly on boarder controls with stamps for you passport. On the drive across from the UK I notched up 4 countries in the 4 hour jaunt to the Grand Depart’s host city.

The weather looked like it was holding and with a few spots of rain on the way in i was holding out hope for a sunny weekend. By the time i arrived the wind had got up a bit and the clouds were looking thicker. Having picked up my accreditation and checked into my hotel there was still warmth and daylight to be had to with a few hours to spare.

I unpacked the bike got my kit on, tucked my credentials into my jersey and set off to recce the time trial course and kick the driving out of my legs. With the roads not fully closed yet i wasn’t able to do the full route, not with out braving some head on traffic in a busy city centre so i settled for looking out for anything suitable for a photo position for the race tomorrow.

Riding done i headed down for the photographers meeting, realising that i had booked my accommodation really well and was barely a few minutes from the press centre. Sitting through the photographers meetings can be a little challenging at times as its hammered home that we need to keep out the way and take the security of the riders very seriously, as well as the security of everyone else, and after you have done that if you feel like making sure the other photographers are safe then that would be great. Thankfully there is some translation that goes on as otherwise my french fails spectacularly, i almost feel aggrieved that GCSE french didn’t cover this stuff.

Finally with all the obligatory stuff out the way it was onto the important task for the night…dinner and beer and the German’s weren’t going to fail us.

Be warned two of these on an empty Stomach isn’t going to end well…as both Pete and I can attest to….